5 things you need to know about Helena Morrissey

Last night I met the one and only Helena Morrissey. In Sydney for the launch of the 30 percent Club, it is her first ever visit to Australia and I would be lying if I told you I wasn’t completely beside myself to be in a room with her. Why? She is a dynamo. 

1. She has a seriously big day job. Helena is the CEO and Chair of Newton Investment Management which has the equivalent of about AUD$95 billion under management. Not a small day job by any means.  She began working at the bank in 1994 and worked her way to the C-suite. In 2001, Newton was bought by BNY Mellon asset management. “I wasn’t expecting to become CEO but they asked me,” she said of taking the big role.
2. She has (several) seriously big commitments outside her day job. Founding and implementing the 30 Percent Club is no small feat. Last night Morrissey said it was “sobering  in the beginning to realise that those who were least supportive of the Club were the most senior women in business. Their reluctance was not ill-founded, rather it reflected the fact that the stigma of being seen to have the “gender” agenda was too risky. In my mind this reinforces how brave Morrissey was to lead this initiative so unapologetically. Not to mention, brilliantly effective. The fact that there is no longer a single company in the FTSE100 without a woman on its board is testament to it. As is the fact that the competition among England’s biggest corporates not to be the last company without a board was “fierce”.
3. She is a game changer. Earlier this year Helena made her company’s sponsorship of the famous Oxford Cambridge boat race contingent on the inclusion of women. For the first time in its 186 year history, this year the iconic British sporting fixture featured the women’s boat race too.  Not only did the two races take place over the same course on the same day, the BBC covered both live for the first time ever, meaning millions around the world tuned in. “If I see something that’s not right, it’s just natural to me to try to change it. It shocked me to discover five years ago that the women who rowed for Oxford and Cambridge Universities had to pay for their own kit and transport – there was NO money supporting them,” Morrissey tells me.  “I had grown up watching the iconic MENS Boat Race on TV every year with my parents and sister – I went to Cambridge, and as a child, it never occurred to me ‘where are the women’. Having realised the huge disparity it was natural to want to fix it – I was the outsider, not  aware of any politics or previous discussions, and my simple questions about ‘why?’ I think resonated more as it implied this might be the general perception. Newton got right behind it – it made huge commercial sense as well as being the right thing to do. The impact of this year’s first women’s race on the same stretch of river, on the same day and watched by the same millions on live TV was much bigger than I could ever have imagined. There was an outpouring of positive messages on Twitter, there were letters from women who rowed for the universities decades ago – and most of all, an immensely positive reaction from men – ‘about time too’. It took 186 years but shows progress is possible!”
4. She has nine children. NINE. “So you can understand why I took a long plane journey – to get some rest,” she told the room last night.  A woman having children is not so remarkable that it warrants a headline but any parent – mum or dad – having nine is pretty headline worthy. Helena’s husband, a lawyer and financial journalist gave up work after their 4^th child was born. Much has been written of their large family and personally I find every word about it rather intriguing. Their first child, now 23, was unplanned and many of their friends believe their eldest would become an only child. Not so. “With a large family, you can’t give as much attention to each child but they look after each other,” she told the Telegraph. “I’m selective about what I go to. I choose the things that are most important to each child. One of my daughters has a fantastic voice so I would go to hear her sing, but I wouldn’t watch her do ballet. My husband, who doesn’t work, goes to the assemblies and matches. Occasionally I feel I’m missing out, but you have to know what you’ve chosen.”
5. Her handbag is messy. Upon asking Helena about her clan she readily reached for her handbag and said she’d be a proud parent and show me a picture. As she rummaged through her bag I was quite delighted to see that the inside of her handbag was not dissimilar to my own. It was messy and for some reason I liked this a lot. I can’t relate to running a billion dollar investment bank or raising nine children but I can certainly relate to having a messy handbag. And I know now, with absolute certainty, it’s not an impediment to achieving anything.